Josep Borrell, Socialist former President of the European Parliament, who describes himself as “Catalan, Spanish and European,” is actually opposed to the Catalan referendum on independence, but he is at least clear eyed enough to see that the use of force by the Spanish state is not a smart move. It is almost comical to see Spanish unionists doing all within their power to alienate those they profess to want to keep in their union.[Read more…]

It is a curious thing that so many opponents of Scottish independence are so eager to proclaim that an independent Scotland would be denied membership of the European Union. It is particularly bizarre when it comes from fervently pro-EU types such as the Liberal Democrats. [Read more…]

It is an entirely understandable reaction to the horror of the terrorist attacks in Paris to want to respond by smashing the enemy. Sadly we know from the reaction to 9/11 and the war on terror that when that understandable reaction leads to torture and the indiscriminate killing of civilians it is hugely counter-productive and throws oil on the terrorists fire. It is always worth remembering that Al Qaeda and now ISIS launch these barbarous attacks precisely because they want to provoke an unrestrained reaction. [Read more…]

You couldn’t make it up, or if you did nobody would believe it. Behind the absurd pomp and pageantry of the visit of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, the most right-wing nationalist UK government of the post Second World War era has sold out our national security. Osborne fiddles with his white bow-tie whilst our steel industry burns, and it becomes ever clearer that the Eton clique, as Xi might call them, have abandoned hope of indigenous economic activity beyond the square mile. [Read more…]

Perhaps a bold prediction but I fear that the herd instinct of political commentators is heading for another cliff. If only I had a pound for every article that talked about the 2020 election as though it was written in stone. It seems that, in spite of the catastrophic performance of the LibDems in the 2015 General Election, Nick Clegg still weaves some spell over the political commentariat, and indeed the Labour Party. His magic wand is understood to have guaranteed 5 years to the current Tory government and nobody has engaged their brain to think through what are the likely consequences of an EU referendum on the electoral timetable. [Read more…]

We got a glimpse last week of the virulent, extreme right wing insurgent political force that is likely to dominate UK politics for the next decade. If you thought Cameron unleashed was bad, just wait until Conservatives for Britain are in charge. [Read more…]

Seumas Milne writing in The Guardian today had an excellent piece on “how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq.” It followed the collapse of a trial at the Old Bailey when it emerged that the individual accused of terrorist activities in Syria had been working with a group armed and supported by UK intelligence agencies. Milne also highlights the role of the gulf states and points out that the, “western habit of playing with jihadi groups, which then come back to bite them, goes back at least to the 1980s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which fostered the original al-Qaida under CIA tutelage.” [Read more…]

It seems like everyone has a cure for the Labour Party. It is a sign of the times for the LibDems that neither the mainstream media, nor social media, are much interested in what happens next for them. The encouraging signs of a post-election membership mini-surge have even been drowned out by Carmichaelgate. But although the LibDem collapse provides welcome opportunities for the growth of the Greens, there is still a need for a strong liberal voice on human rights and Europe. The difficulty is whether the LibDems are in any state to provide it. [Read more…]

How did it come to this? Five years on from an election where the Scottish LibDems won a modern record of 11 seats in Scotland on 19% of the vote, they have been left with Alistair Carmichael, 7.5% of the vote, 47 lost deposits and struggling to be taken seriously. Getting into bed with the Tories was always going to be disproportionately difficult for the party in Scotland. And of course as David Steel has pointed out they played the coalition game catastrophically badly. [Read more…]

Apparently we are all mad, or have joined a gnostic cult. No votes have yet been counted, but polls predicting 50% plus for the SNP have almost become banal. There is a risk that the SNP winning a majority of Scottish Westminster seats will seem an anti-climax. Whatever the final result, all pundits seem to agree that something extraordinary is happening in Scotland. And yet few on any side seem to have a clear idea of why. [Read more…]